


Longing for Lavender

by juneedes



Category: Tales of Zestiria
Genre: F/M, Hanahaki AU, M/M, Sormik Week 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-11
Updated: 2019-08-11
Packaged: 2020-08-14 10:18:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20190676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/juneedes/pseuds/juneedes
Summary: (and what hope, she wonders, could it be to meet again?)





	Longing for Lavender

**Author's Note:**

> This one is for SorMik week 2019 with the prompt: LAVENDER {Hope, Untainted} 
> 
> A big thank you to Kuya Krak and Ate Rich, who helped me with this~!
> 
> I was having coughs while reading the prompt list and saw ~flowers~ for the prompts so brain said, why not Hanahaki AU? And lavender is a very good representation of Mikleo, no?

Mikleo hasn't coughed up a lavender in centuries. And yet he carries on, still. There’s nothing he can do about it, anyway.

He walks through hallways of history, pausing every now and then to investigate some intricacies in the walls. He soon passes by a ruby and he starts feeling some warmth creeping upon him. It reminds him a little of Igraine, and Igraine reminds him of Goddodin, then of Pope Masedra, the Church, the fake Elixirs, money, merchants, the Sparrowfeathers—Rose.

Ah.

Funny how memory works.

He twirls the lavender between his fingers. He recalls Rose, who had first explained to him the nature of his disease. He remembers doubting Rose. But then she told him that lavender fits him so well, _ she _ wouldn't doubt it's for him. 

* * *

Rose approached him after he had coughed up a grand total of 39 flowers after Sorey went to sleep. He had been tailing an elusive hellion for the team, and blew his cover with the incessant hacking. Fortunately for him, the rest of the group wasn't too far behind and had quickly dispatched the hellion before it could harm anyone or escape again.

Mikleo... couldn't escape Rose. She dragged him aside during camp that evening and cleared up everything.

"How many?" she asked worriedly.

"39." No use lying when she seems to know about it already.

"It's not even three years," she mumbled, frowning in concern.

"What do you know about the flowers?" He had looked for solutions as much as he could while they were on the road, but he wasn't able to find much information in the first place.

Rose seemed to recall a painful memory, but pushed forward, like always.

"They're flowers born from unrequited love," she answered simply. "Don't worry, the feelings are not yours," she added when confusion crossed his face.

"Not mine... unrequited?"

"Yeah, I wonder about that, myself," she admitted, before smiling brightly in hopes of cheering him up. "I'm sure you'll get your answer, though!"

Again with the answers.

"So I have to get those answers if I want these to stop," he concluded.

"Yup. You can't do anything about it."

Mikleo groaned.

"You said I have to get my answer!" he argued.

"Uh, no? You wait for it." And that's easy to say. Waiting definitely is the hard part. "You can look, but in the end, you can’t do anything about it."

He just sighed in resignation.

Rose thought nothing of it. Mikleo's already waiting for Sorey, why not wait for this one as well? She's pretty sure they're one and the same, anyway.

"Look, try not to die from the flowers," she started. "And definitely don't die from the hellions. Or fall into malevolence, et cetera. It would be a shame if you don't have closure from this, right?"

"Right."

"And you still have something to do, right?"

"Right..."

"And." Rose clapped her hands together in conclusion. "That's all!"

She skipped away from him after that, hoping he wouldn't notice the worries bubbling in her heart. For Mikleo to show signs of _his_ feelings, even when they're impossibly separated like this... it's dangerous. If lavenders stood for Mikleo and for hope, (and what hope, she wonders, could it be to meet again?) then who knows what would happen if Sorey wakes up to a world without Mikleo? 

* * *

Rose had been horrified when she saw Mikleo cough up the first of his lavenders, but it wasn't her place to tell.

Not that she knew what to say in the first place. No one puked flowers when they romped around Glenwood, so she always thought everything's fine.

In the end, Sorey never told her anything.

She _ had _meant to ask him before everything went to hell.

* * *

But it was always another day...

* * *

And another...

* * *

And another.

* * *

Rose wanted to pry that last (not last, as it turned out) secret out, that one obviously playing over Sorey's face after they talked, but after everything that happened that day? She left it for another time.

* * *

Looking back, she should have wrapped up everything regarding that discussion back then; back when they already opened the subject.

Back when Rose had coughed violently in the middle of her tears and almost didn't notice the dark blooms she produced in her pain. She definitely did not notice that Sorey picked up the roses in her stead while she calmed from her agony, regaining her breath.

"Rose, what is this?"

Rose stilled, almost tempted to swipe the flowers from Sorey, crush them and pretend they weren't there--

But he deserved to know, she supposed. After that disaster from keeping secrets, she doesn't want anything like it repeating.

"It's kinda like malevolence–when something goes to the extremes, you know? Except, nobody turns into a hellion. They cough up flowers, instead."

So she explained. Hanahaki, they call it. Where one coughs up flowers born from someone's love.

"Feelings, whatever," she elaborated, as she receives from Sorey the most recent ones she coughed up. "This isn't love... I think." The red one is darker than her past roses, which are all the same vibrant red, and the rest are all black. Death.

"From Dezel," Sorey guessed, realization dawning. Rose nodded.

"Idiot wouldn't talk about it. And I suffer for it," she laughed bitterly. "Now he's dead and... I don't know if I should be happy that I'm not going to cough up flowers anymore or..."

She pursed her lips before she could spill anything more.

"Anyway, what happened is, Dezel had some stuff to say to me, not just the Windrider stuff, but he wouldn't say it to my face," she explained. "So some higher being sent the message by making me cough it up instead. It would have stopped normally if Dezel told me, but..."

"But, he's dead," Sorey finished.

"Yeah, and his feelings died with him," Rose affirmed. "So I guess I'll stop coughing up flowers from now on; without him saying anything at all."

"What happens if you'll still..." he gestured vaguely to the flowers. She shrugged.

"I can handle it so far. If it's still Dezel sending them to me, then it wouldn't be stopping anytime soon, would it?"

Sorey shook his head no.

"That's why... that's why, if you have something like this, or, or _ someone _, you better tell them," she ordered. "Or me, and we could figure something out."

* * *

Then maybe Mikleo would have been spared of the pain of untold feelings.

  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  


In the silence of Artorius' Throne, Sorey had a moment to collect his thoughts, though he tried not to dwell on any of it. It was all he could do to keep himself together and keep from breaking down.

He sighed deeply as his thoughts went to Mikleo--his other half, his kindred soul, his one and only. He thought of their talk, their promise.

Mikleo said that he would be abandoned in time, but it feels like he's the one leaving them behind. He had seen the burden of waiting on their journey, and it breaks his heart to know that Mikleo will be doing exactly that with no end in sight.

It's a heavy enough burden without his feelings on top of it. Sorey could only hope he could keep his part of the promise and continue at the end of it all.

And before he surrendered to his slumber, he thought of his own forget-me-nots tucked into his copy of the Celestial Record.

  
  
  
  
  


  
  
  
  
  
  
  


He never thought he would dream.

He dreamt of lavender.

**Author's Note:**

> Additional flower meanings:
> 
> LAVENDER - Purity, silence, devotion, caution, serenity, grace, calmness. And hope, apparently. Perhaps due to the fact that it has medicinal properties, so it gives hope to those with ailments or sickness or need...  
ROSES - Red roses convey deep emotions, be it love, longing or desire. Red Roses can also be used to convey respect, admiration or devotion. A deep red rose can be used to convey heartfelt regret and sorrow.  
FORGET-ME-NOT - Remembrance, true love
> 
> And in case you haven't noticed, this version of Hanahaki has a little twist there where the recipient of the feelings is the one coughing up the flowers, not the one harboring the feelings as per the norm in Hanahaki AUs. Rose explained it all to Sorey.
> 
> And so the title itself goes for both Sorey and Mikleo. Mikleo longs for the lavenders, as they represent Sorey's feelings for him and gives him hope that Sorey's still there.  
Sorey longs for lavenders, as they represent Mikleo for him.
> 
> Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed~


End file.
